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In the Confessions, Augustine echoes Tobit's pairing of punishment and mercy when recalling his misconduct in church, describing God's punishments as severe but less than his offense deserved.
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2500 BCE
1000+ CE
Tobit 13:2
Deuterocanon
1 And he said Blessed is God that lives for ever, and his kingdom, For he chastises, and shows mercy. 2 He leads down to Hades below the earth, And he brings up from the great destruction; And there is nothing that shall escape his hand. 3 Give thanks to him before the Gentiles, you children of Israel, For he has scattered you among them, 4 And there he has shown you his greatness; And extol him before all the living. Because he is our Lord, and he our God, and he our Father, Yes, he is God to all the ages:
Augustine, Confessions 3.3
Early Christian
And still your faithful mercy hovered over me from afar. In what shameful iniquities I wore myself out, following a sacrilegious curiosity, which, having deserted you, then began to drag me down into the treacherous abyss, into the beguiling obedience of devils, to whom I made offerings of my wicked deeds. And still in all this you did not fail to scourge me. I dared, even while your solemn rites were being celebrated inside the walls of your church, to desire and to plan a project which merited death as its fruit. For this you chastised me with grievous punishments, but nothing in comparison with my fault, you my greatest mercy, my God, my refuge from those terrible dangers in which I wandered with stiff neck, receding farther from you, loving my own ways and not yours—loving a vagrant liberty!
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Notes and References
“... Conybeare (2016:59) notes: ‘The entire prayer of Tobit 13 is
in fact of immense importance for the themes of the
Confessions’. O’Donnell (1992b:6–7) demonstrates that
Tobit 13 was important for the Confessiones not only
because of allusions to its content, but even its structure,
which O’Donnell clearly sets out. Tobit 12:7, after all, has
Raphael say that it is important to reveal and confess the
works of God, which is the major impetus of the
Confessiones. O’Donnell (1992b:6–7) notes several allusions
to Tobit 13 in Confessiones 1.1.1, 1.2.2, 1.16.26, 2.2.4, 2.3.6,
2.6.14, 2.9.18, 3.3.5, 4.15.24, 7.21.27, 8.5.12, 8.6.14, 10.2.2,
10.6.8, 12.16.23, 13.38.53 and so on. ...”
de Wet, Chris L.
The Book of Tobit in Early Christianity: Greek and Latin Interpretations from the 2nd to the 5th Century CE
(p. 9) HTS Teologiese Studies Vol. 76, No. 4, 2020
* The use of references are not endorsements of their contents. Please read the entirety of the provided reference(s) to understand the author's full intentions regarding the use of these texts.
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